Craftsmanship in Teaching eBook

The best way in this world to be definite is to know
our goal and then strive to attain it. In the
lack of definite standards based upon the lessons
of the past, our dominant national ideals shift with
every shifting wind of public sentiment and popular
demand. Are we satisfied with the individualistic
and self-centered idealism that has come with our
material prosperity and which to-day shames the memory
of the men who founded our Republic? Are we negligent
of the serious menace that confronts any people when
it loses its hold upon those goods of life that are
far more precious than commercial prestige and individual
aggrandizement? Are we losing our hold upon the
sterner virtues which our fathers possessed,—­upon
the things of the spirit that are permanent and enduring?

A study of history cannot determine entirely the dominant
ideals of those who pursue it. But the study
of history if guided in the proper spirit and dominated
by the proper aim may help. For no one who gets
into the spirit of our national history,—­no
one who traces the origin and growth of these ideals
and institutions that I have named,—­can
escape the conviction that the elemental virtues of
courage, self-reliance, hardihood, unselfishness,
self-denial, and service lie at the basis of every
forward step that this country has made, and that the
most precious part of our heritage is not the material
comforts with which we are surrounded, but the sturdy
virtues which made these comforts possible.

FOOTNOTES:

The scientific method is the method of unprejudiced
observation and induction. Its function in the
scheme of life is to furnish man with facts and principles,—­statements
which mirror with accuracy and precision the conditions
that may exist in any situation of any sort which
man may have to face. In other words, the facts
of science are important and worthy because they help
us to solve the problems of life more satisfactorily.
They are instrumental in their function. They
are means to an end. And whenever we have a problem
to solve, whenever we face a situation that demands
some form of adjustment, the more accurate the information
that we possess concerning this situation, the better
we shall be able to solve it.

Now when I propose that we try to find out some facts
about the teaching of English, and that we apply the
scientific method in the discovery of these facts,
I am immediately confronted with an objection.
My opponent will maintain that the subject of English
in our school curriculum is not one of the sciences.
Taking English to mean particularly English literature
rather than rhetoric or composition or grammar, it
is clear that we do not teach literature as we teach